The Trouble With Spiders

by K.L. Abrahamson

About the Author: K.L. Abrahamson is the author of the Detective Kazakov Mysteries and the Phoebe Clay Mysteries, her short fiction can be found in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and anthologies such as Moonlight and Misadventure, and Cold Canadian Crime. Her short stories have been finalists for the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence and the Derringers.

Excerpt

Every morning I check my slippers for spiders. I throw off the covers, fumble for my glasses and, with my feet chilling on the cold linoleum floor, check that spiders didn’t nest in my slippers overnight. There is nothing worse than feeling spidery legs thrashing against your toes or that !POP! as their small round bodies explode.

It is such a mess getting their guts out of faux fleece.

I don’t hate spiders. I respect the orderliness of their lives and the perfect webs between branches or in the tall grass. The dew on the silken strands glistens jewel-like in the morning sun.

But there is something horrible about the motionless way spiders wait and then leap on the unsuspecting bee or butterfly drawn in by that morning beauty, only to be sucked dry by the spider.

I don’t like the way the prey jerks and trembles as the spider wraps them in silk. I hate to see the suffering.

That’s why I usually smash those beautiful webs with a rock.

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